Links:

Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p

Our Peak Mandarin Masterpack for learning Chinese: https://www.peakmandarin.com/masterclass

Will's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@willhartmandarin/videos

--

In this episode, I share our special live q&a session with Will Hart, co-founder of Peak Mandarin.

Will should need no introduction to readers of this blog. Two years ago he burst on the Mandarin learning scene when videos of him speaking flawless Chinese after learning for less than two years went viral on

In the q&a, Will took live questions from the audience in our Discord Server on all things Mandarin learning.

Questions ranged from Will’s thoughts on Comprehensible Input to how he went about learning characters.

Links:

Peak Mandarin Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p

Your ultimate guide to Mastering Chinese tones

--

In this episode, we’re diving into one of the most challenging parts of learning Mandarin: mastering tricky tone pairs.

I’ll walk you through four of the most commonly mispronounced tone combinations and explain how to get them right.

In this episode, we bring you the recording of our October 20th session where we tackled questions on how to fix your tones.

If you're looking to improve your tones but aren't sure how, this discussion is packed with insights from me, as well as server moderator, Jered.

Tune in to hear valuable tips, expert advice, and answers to your questions from the live audience. Perfect for anyone looking to level up their tones!

Interested in joining more live sessions like this? Join our Discord server on this link: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p

Links:

Peak Mandarin Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p

--

In this episode, I dive into one of the most common questions Mandarin learners face:

Do you really need to memorise the tones for every new word?

Drawing from my personal journey of learning Mandarin and my experiences coaching other learners on my Pronunciation Academy, I discuss the challenges many learners encounter with tone memorisation.

I’ll share tips on memorising tones and learning to produce them accurately.

Links:

Peak Mandarin Discord: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p

--

In a recent episode, we announced the launch of our Peak Mandarin Discord Server.

In just over a week we’ve seen the server grow into a thriving hub with nearly 200 learners supporting each other to ace their Mandarin-speaking goals.

And in today’s episode you’ll hear our first-ever live Q&A hosted in the server last Sunday, covering how to practice speaking at an early stage of your learning.

Joining me on the q&a panel were Peak Mandarin server moderators, Jered and Lewys, who’ve each been leaning Mandarin for around two years and focussed heavily on speaking during that time.

We had some great questions covering how to find opportunities to speak and get feedback from native speakers early on, in a way that’s effective and stress-free.

Links:

Peak Mandarin Discord server: https://discord.gg/BtT6t7fK

Interview with Karen Chung: https://imlearningmandarin.com/2022/06/26/how-to-achieve-a-near-native-chinese-accent-with-professor-karen-chung-podcast/

My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook

--

Recently a member of our Peak Mandarin Discord server posted a short clip of a native Mandarin speaker saying a sentence in mid-conversation at full-blown speed.

The sentence was: 这么复杂的东西怎么学得会啊不可能的嘛对吧。Zhème fùzá de dōngxī zěnme xué de huì a bù kěnéng de ma duì ba. Something this complicated, how could I possibly learn it? It's impossible, right?

The challenge was laid out for members of the server to mimic the sentence and post their attempts on the thread to receive feedback from other learners.

So I decided to deploy the methods I often use to mimic native speech and give it a go.

In this episode I’m going to break down step by step how I went from struggling to keep up to being able to deliver the sentence with natural rhythm and accurate tones at lightning speed.

A word of caution, this sentence was particularly challenging, so if you don’t have much experience mimicking Mandarin, it’s advisable to start with something shorter and much slower.

Links:

My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook

Our Peak Mandarin Discord Server: https://discord.gg/b9PAyKwT9p

Joshua's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@jlykes

--

On today’s episode, I interview Joshua Lykes, an up-and-coming YouTuber whose recent videos on learning Chinese have been creating waves in the community.

Joshua recently posted an hour-long video documenting in detail his first year of Mandarin learning.

And one of the things that stood out to me about that video Joshua’s use of technology, much of which wasn’t available to me when I first started learning Chinese.

It strikes me that in the last year or two, the sudden exposition of AI has had a tremendously deep impact on how we learn Chinese and that’s only going to increase going forward.

So after meeting Joshua on our Peak Mandarin Discord server and learning about his journey, I decided to get him on the podcast to chat about his experiences using AI to learn Chinese, as well as his hopes for the future of technology and language learning.

Link to Discord Server: https://discord.gg/gvWFSDbj

--

One thing I’ve found that’s often missing for a lot of learners

This is something I try and provide here through my blog. But I’d like to expand this further. So today, we’re announcing the launch of our Peak Mandarin Discord community, a space where Mandarin learners can

To join the community you can click this link. If you don’t already have a Discord account you’ll be prompted to create one and then join the Peak Mandarin server.

Once in the server feel free to write a post introducing yourself to the community, share your experiences and get involved in discussions.

To explain more about why we’re creating this online community and what we hope to achieve through it I sat down to chat with three of our community moderators, Lewys, Jered and Philipp.

Links:

My free Mandarin learning eBook: https://www.peakmandarin.com/free-ebook

My blog: imlearningmandarin.com

In my first few years of learning Chinese, there were many occasions

This might take the form of a direct comment from a native speaker

These moments can be pivotal in shaping our learning experience for better or worse.

Recently I was talking about this to one of my students, Lewys, who

So in this episode, we share our experiences of having our egos

Links:

Get 20% off first month of Mandarin Mosaic: https://mandarinmosaic.com/imlearningmandarin

Karl's blog on ChatGPT: http://imlearningmandarin.com/2024/05/19/does-chatgpt-speak-authentic-chinese-the-results-of-my-study-may-surprise-you/

--

My guest on this week’s episode is an app designer who has made several appearances here in the past.

Karl Baker, recently launched his new Mandarin learning app, Mandarin Mosaic.

The App seeks to make sentence mining accessible. Like Anki, but easier to use and

And if you’re interested in trying it out, you can go go mandarinmosaic.com/imlearningmandarin to get 20% off your first month.

I caught up with Karl and began by asking him all about his new launch, as well as his plans for the future.